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Saturday, January 14, 2012

Escape by Drinking the Star Wars Juice: Young Adult

Young Adult follows Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron), a writer
of a young adult book series who returns to her hometown to win back Buddy
(Patrick Wilson), her high school sweet heart. Mavis is the kind of person that
would leave for a long trip with a one-night stand still sleeping in her bed,
name her dog Dolce, and type gibberish on her phone just to look important and
busy. And she also doesn't mind that Buddy is now happily married with an
infant daughter. She’s the saddest and most delusional character I’ve seen in a
while.

The film starts with crying and we quickly see that it’s
coming from a reality show on Mavis’ TV. Trashy reality TV shows up in this
movie a lot, acting as a kind of supportive beam running through the film’s
structure. Self-obsession is definitely a theme here.

This beginning is one of the most mundane I've ever seen,
featuring Mavis waking up, feeding her dog, and playing video games. The film
in general actually features a lot of banal activities and highlights quite a
few fast food restaurants and mega marts. All this seems to set up one of the
film's central tenets – our culture can be seriously boring and depressing.

The film's title is spot-on – Mavis begins to regress the
moment she hits the road for her hometown. She listens to the same song over
and over again on her trip and we learn later that it's a tune that she and
Buddy used to make out to (among other things). Granted, Mavis doesn't really
need to regress that much, as aspects of her personality show that she never
really grew up in the first place. There are a few scenes of her chugging from
two liter soda bottles, and it reminded me of Will Ferrell's Buddy from Elf, another character that never really
grew up.

Shortly after getting to town Mavis runs into Matt, (Patton
Oswalt) a former classmate of hers who was brutally beaten in high school for
supposedly being gay. Matt now has physical impairments and walks with a
crutch. He's a great mirror for Mavis – his physical limitations reflect her
emotional problems perfectly. The two form a friendship of sorts, and Oswalt's
scenes are some of the best in the film.

The main reason to see Young
Adult is, of course, Charlize Theron. She plays a troubled, depressed,
alcoholic perfectly and a scene near the end where Mavis completely unravels is
powerful, painfully awkward, and a little funny. Mavis is truly a horrible
person, but Theron somehow makes you wish the best for her. The film just kind
of struck me as a meditation on the worst parts of life, however, and Theron
simply couldn't save it.